The Political Philosophy of Bertrand Russell

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About the Author Dr. (Mrs.) Amita Singh (b. 1955) did her M.A. in 1976 from Agra University, securing first division and was awarded Ph.D. in 1983 by the same University.

Dr. Singh started her teaching career from Banasthali Vidyapith, the prestgious women's institution in Rajasthan immediately after her Post-graduation She is currently serving as lecturer of Political Science in the Kamla Nehru College, Delhi University.

Dr. Singh has contributed learned articles in national dailies such as Patriot, Hindustan Times and Indian Express. She also presented research papers in ICSSR sponsored seminars.

She was closely associated till 1986 with the Delhi Chapter of Bertrand Russell Study Forum, promoting Russell's liberalism in thought and action

Preface The primary aim of this work is to show that Russell is not simply a mathematician but a political philosopher of the first order. He based his arguments on science. His deep penetrating and scientific vision analysed the contemporary dogmas in the field of politics and assigned the evil to an orthodox and authoritative system of education. Many of his ideas aroused much controversy and on occasion sharp criticism but he crossed these difficult vicissitudes of life with his zest and refreshing candour. His grace of style and unflinching faith in human excellence was able to hold the attention of his critics also.

Russell is not a political theorist in the sense of Hobbes and Spencer. He is a practical politician who had imbibed the ideals of Darwinism, Utilitarianism and Anarchism. He foresaw, that the fear of totalitarianism in varying garbs, looms over the cultural landscape of the free world. This fear was the potent factor of political disorder in western Christendom as well as in the Bolshevik Russia. He belongs to a distinct genre of writers such as Auden, Spencer and Orwell in England, André Gide, Souvarine, Serge, Panait Istrati and Arthur Koestler in Europe and Dos Passos, Hicks and Eastman in USA who gave a literature of dissillusionment at the sight of the practice of Marxists in the hands of Bolshevik revolutionaries.

Russell analysed practical politics as a scientist and a psychologist. For him the underlying energy of political dynamics was not supplied by matter as in Marx, or sex as in Freud or population as in Malthus. He has attracted readers by his empiricism in which little is determinate and little is left for doubt.

Russell was a sensitive philosopher who valued humanism more than any other 'ism'. His political ideas are blended with his humanism. The key to the understanding of his thoughts is his Philosophy of 'Logical Atomism.' This was a weapon with which he attacked dogmatic authority and puritan morals in the social and political fields. His stimulating and provocative ideas have made him the pillar of scientific thought. His writings maintain a very high standard which are always a source of inexhaustible interest and pleasure.

I wish to express my gratitude to my supervisor Dr. Sukhbir Singh of R.B.S. College Agra for providing me a ready and indispensable help throughout my work. I am indebted to Shri Mahendra Singh, my typist whose punctuality and hard labour made me finish my work in time. My thanks are due to the literary executors and librarians of Rajasthan University (Jaipur). Agra University Library (Agra), British Council Library (New Delhi), Sapru House Library (New Delhi), R.B.S. College Library (Agra), and Gopinath Purohit Library of Banasthali Vidyapith.

Foreword Bertrand Russell was the most rational man of our times and as such he belonged to no one specific ideology, faith or nation. All nations can truly be proud of him that such a profound man of wisdom and knowledge was ever involved in political action to preserve this civilization from nuclear holocaust. In real sense he was a scientist, a teacher, and above all a concerned philosopher for social action. He was crusader of Peace, Freedom and Justice. But as a man he was always the seeker who never claimed to be a Seer.

His search for 'External World' goes beyond the issues of metaphysics and his intellectual curiousity is not limited only to the mathematics. Generally he is considered to be an esoteric philosopher of science but his contribution to humanities and social sciences is far greater than his "Principia Mathematica". His life was governed by three passions 'the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind'. Amita Singh in this volume has presented Russell's concern for human sciences and tried to offer gleanings from his vast writings relating to the question of restructuring of society for the removal of poverty, ignorance and injustice.

Amita Singh's study describes Russell's 'Scientific Methods' which if adopted by national educational policy makers can eventually lead to an ideal society and to a non-repressive political-state structure. Global unity and international peace can be guaranteed only when socio-political system and the governance have been integrated with ever advancing scientific knowledge. Social value-systems and political goals should not negate creative aspirations of 'atomic reality' of society- individual.

Absolute idealism of Russell is, however, built on the strength of social realism. In order to re-construct a rational outlook in society, rejection and denial of Faith is the first necessary condition. Whereas Descartes submitted all this reasoning for the approval of the Church, and to appease the rulers and the custodians of the faith, he proposed to demonstrate this 'existence of God' can be proved from the principles of mathematics. But Russell attacked the metaphysical belief in God with unprecedented ferocity derived from his scientific knowledge. Unlike the earlier Christian philosophers, Russell did not seek the blessing or the backing of the Church. He instead challenged its cognitive authority and directly invited its anger and frustration. In his concise logical language Russell declared "Why I am not a Christian" which has become the new bible in the hands of the post-Vietnam War generation in the West. Understandably, the Russellian literature is forbidden by the Holy See. But Russell was equally damned by those who swear by the holy name of Karl Marx. Having once disowned the Christian gods, Russell was not now willing to accept a new deity of the Marxian ideology.

Perhaps he was too rash when he said that "Marx was muddle headed and his thinking was almost entirely inspired by hatred... his chief desire was to see his enemies punished, rather than constructing a new happier society." Admittedly Marx's life was not as comfortable as the life of the aristocrat turned socialist Lord Russell. But for writing such profanity Russell became an unwelcome "anarchist" in many capitals of 'the People's Democratic Rupublics'. He never recognised goodness in any authority and detested preachers of all shades. But he was honest enough to admit that Marx was the founder of "scientific socialism". Still he believed that the struggle for Liberation is a continuum and so no doctrine, not even Marx's, can be considered the last word of Prophecy. Russell sought no official patronage and no government honoured him with awards.

Introduction Bertrand Arthur William Russell's life is a turbulent tornado between Victorian puritanism and the present day permissive- ness. Had he lived for another two years he would have completed his hundred. He is England's greatest philosopher of this century who always felt comfortable in opposition. Till the coming of Wittgenstein and the Existentialists he held a commanding position as a philosopher of logic, mathematics and philosophy, yet he continued to be the central axis of the intellectual life of England. He held sway over the thoughts of all thinking men including the emerging university youth, and claims to have brought both Khruschev and Chau En Lai to conform to his ideals of a better world. Future generations will imbibe his thoughts and will continue to write about Russell as a great social and political scientist involved in the untiring job of social reconstruction, as a revolt against dogmatic and orthodox thinking, against atomic war and human killing and lastly against any philosophy that compromised individuality for the future hopes of a millenia. Alan Wood rightly states that 'the post-Russellians are all proper Russellians."1

FORMULATIVE INFLUENCES

Russell was born on 18th May, 1872 at Ravenscroft near Trelleck, Monmouthshire, England. He was a descendent of Lord Russell who was executed on the Scaffold with Republican Algernon Sidney under Charles II. His father and mother were liberals and his father was in the parliament for a year (1867-68). His parents were close friends of John Stuart Mill. Russell writes that 'my parents accepted Mill's opinion not only such as were comparatively popular, but also those that shocked public sentiment such as women's suffarage and birth control.'s This radicalism and courage in his father at the cost of his career was inherited by Bertrand Russell. His mother shared his father's views 'and shocked the sixties by addressing meet- ings in favour of equality of women." His parents being free thinkers wanted Bertrand and his brother Frank to be brought up as free thinkers but they died within four years of Russell's birth. Bertrand Russell was then brought to his grand-parents house in Pembroke Lodge, and the court set aside his father's will thus Russell had a Christian upbringing. A political career was pressed upon Russell and for some time he was attached to the embassy in Paris during the time of Dreyfus but nothing beyond that was undertaken by him.

Russell's grandfather was a liberal Prime Minister who had introduced the Reform Bill of 1832 and who fought for the ideals of liberty such as women's rights and emancipation of Jews. Bertrand wrote that 'such things stimulated my ambition to live to some purpose." The greatest influence upon Russell, was of his grandmother because his grandfather died in 1878 and he was left totally in her charge. He writes that, 'she was a more powerful influence upon my general outlook than anyone else, although, from adolescence onward, I disagreed, with very many of her opinions." She was a Scotch Presbytarian 'She disliked wine, abhorred tobacco and was always at the verge of becoming a vegetarian. Her life was austere... She was completely unwordly, and despised those who thought anything of worldly honours." At his twelfth birthday she gave him a Bible: and Russell imbibed the sense of her favourite text, "Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil.' As he writes, 'these texts have profoundly influenced my life and still seemed to retain some meaning after I had ceased to believe in God." Russell found that even his grandmother belonged to a noble and courageous family. 'Her maternal grandfather suffered obloquy for declaring on the basis of the thickness of the lava on the slopes of Etna, that the world must have been created before 4004 B.C. One of her great grandfathers was Robertson the historian of Charles V." Russell is highly indebted to her because she gave him the feeling of safety and affection that children need. Russell's life had been an example of courage. In 1921 when he visited China he had nearly died and the 'Mauchester Guardian' even published his obituary. In deathbed when people visited him he discussed with them plans for ending national strifes, future of China and debates of Chen Tohsu which had influenced the young Mao Tse Tung and Chuteh to Dewey. Again in 1961 he had a severe case of Shingles and was advised to stay in bed but he instead, preferred to address the youth CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) rally in Birmingham and also completed his famous book 'Has Man a Future. He caught flu just before the press conference that launched the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, but during the meeting he was so alert and responsive that nobody could guess that he has such high fever. This was the reason why he was referred to as a 'Victorian fossil' in the intellectual circles of his age. To Ralph Schoenmann he once uttered, 'I attribute my longevity to controversy.'10 In fact it had actually been a burning desire within him to grow more humane and to make the world more humane. It was this desire that strengthened his will to live and finish the task he had undertaken, Russell had seen death at close quarters at a very early age. The loss he felt at every death filled him with a deep feeling of insecurity at times putting him into extreme pessimism about social relation- ships. He kept lying awake for nights thinking how dreadful it would be when his grandmother would die. He grew up in an atmosphere 'impregnated with tradition." Russell quotes Amabel Huth Jackson's letter to describe the atmosphere of the house at Pembroke Lodge. She wrote, "They (family members) all drifted in and out of the room's like ghosts and no one ever seemed to be hungry. It was a curious bringing up for two (Bertrand and Frank) young and extraordinarily gifted boys." He was brought up at home by German nurses and English tutors. At the age of fourteen years he became interested in religion and started analysing the religious beliefs but this undermined his faith in it. He grew very unhappy, put at the time he attributed this unhappiness to his emerging doubts about religion. He wrote, 'I thought that if I ceased to believe in God, freedom and immortality, I should be very unhappy. I found however, that the reasons given in favour of these dogmas were very unconvincing." He was influenced by Mill's argument in his autobiography about the same problem that 'who made me'? Can not be answered because it automatically suggests the further question 'who made God"? Thus highly convinced, Russell became an atheist. He writes that 'throughout the long period of religious doubt, I had been rendered very unhappy by a gradual loss of belief, but when the process was completed, I found to my surprise that I was quite glad to be done with the whole subject."